why is it hard to like other people’s boy children

[Halfmunch]

I am a mother to girls, and have no brothers and I admit I don’t have much experience of raising or being around boys. The boys in my life I can find them overwhelming, frustrating and to be honest, self centred and lazy.

However, I am wondering if this is related to how people parent the boys, and a patriarchal society rather than the boys - as in it’s not their fault, they were not born this way. Is this something other parents have noticed, like Little Prince Syndrome?

My husband has a 12yo son and even after 5 years I struggle to bond with him. I have 2 x 9yo nephews and I also struggle with them. All 3 kids have different parents.

The boys are all overbearing in conversations - yell and talk over everyone else and already at their age ?!? mansplain and refuse to accept explanations or answers, challenging everything, ie. They all seem to ‘know better’ when a female answers a question and all have very singular topics they are only interested in, not interested in other people really. Step son is obsessed with football, so everything you do has to centre around that, and if it doesn’t, he’s completely disinterested in anything else and just mopes about.

I notice the boys all seem to opt out of clearing up, after a meal finished they will return to either talking about their chosen topic without noticing everyone else is clearing up, or go do their own activity, and have to be asked/reminded to do even minor tasks such as take a plate to the kitchen. I often watch them at family parties and while everyone else is pitching in, they have wandered off kicking a ball around quietly and when asked to help ‘oh I didn’t realise…’ however if it’s something slightly dangerous, they will barge in and get in your way even if you don’t want them to help they feel entitled to ‘help’ like SS demanding to be allowed to ‘light the BBQ’ unsupervised

They are nice boys, but I often read posts on here about people’s useless husbands, and think hmm well, there seems to be an awful lot of these males around… and it probably starts young!

My DH often feels frustrated as he’s very much an equal partner with a female, and believes in equality. He feel like he’s always nagging his son to try to get him to learn about life but many females seem to enable this! DH’s mum acts like SS is made of china, and my mum is the same with my nephew.

Is there a way we can tackle this as society?

Interesting - DH often less worried with both our girls and boy than I was.

In our case it was often our girls who pushed boundaries and what they could do more than DS who often need a push and encouragement - but that was due to personality.

I rememeber my IL freaking out when our teens were using kettles - as they seem to see them as more incapable and younger than they were. They dangerously relaxed when parents but DH was cooking unsupervised before he was a teen.

As GC though I think not seeing them every day and being much older they didn't keep up with their ablities and what their ages meant. Though my own parents never let us touch kettle till we were past 18 - so no hot drinks till we left home basically.

0/10

Try harder

Replying anyway despite the lack of effort made in goading.

I meet lovely children of either sex and annoying children of both sex as well.

As a girl mum many of the boys my dds have been friends with / gone out with have been lovely. Dd2 is now at a boys school for 6th form. The vast majority of the lads are decent.

However there is a small vile group of boys that play a particular sport 🙄 who are sponsored to do so so are lauded and are routinely horrific to the girls. Despite most of the girls and many of the nice boys giving statements about this they are not being expelled as was initially planned as their parents went mad.

The staff are frustrated about it too. That’s the issue in my mind. There are a minority who are not parenting their sons properly and this is the outcome - it’s horrible and dangerous. However annoying women and girls are and Not denying many are - they do not end up as damaging as this.

Let me guess OP - you also believe trans women are women, right?

I'm so glad you missed the point about the bigger picture, always makes it worthwhile reading a reply.

I’ve, well we because DH helped too, raised two boys to adulthood. They’re nothing like the man you’ve described nor were they like the boys you described. Our sons are polite, respectful, helpful, kind, loving and considerate people. I don’t buy into all this boys will be boys bullshit, they’re just kids and were treated that way, but at the same time they were individuals so some needs are different.

DS2 is now a parent, to a 2yo boy. He’s totally equal when it comes to chores, cooking and parenting. In fact, if you asked DDIL she’d probably say he does more, but he works out of the home for more hours so that can’t be true.

DS1 cooks and cleans. He would never up and leave the table, leaving DDIL to clean up, but then DH doesn’t do that either. It doesn’t matter whose house he’s at, he pitches in.

Children are products of their own environment. They can’t be what they can’t see. If you don’t guide and teach them then they don’t know how to become decent human beings, regardless of their sex.

No, it means that particular experience is the exception, and my daughter's is more of a rule. And you know it. You all know it.

You sound absolutely awful with your silly bigoted opinions, i imagine you strive for the usual instagram style girl mom aesthetics with your daughters -yawn, and i bet they are little angels who treat all their friends with kindness 🙄
I have sons and a daughter so feel qualified in my experience of being a mother to both sex's unlike yourself.
My boys and their many friends were as little boys and now men, nice,decent bright and chatty - many other positives .
All the negatives you speak about can be attached to girls too you know.
Speaking of which my much adored -equally to her brothers -daughter has many of the positive attributes needed to be socially acceptable and successful in life similar to her brothers .
They were all pretty easy to raise but if i had to think hard about it i would say my boys were probably easier.
Threads like yours are really beginning to rile me and as to your comment asking' if there is any way we can tackle this in society ? ' well just go and piss right off with your patronising fake concern.

The strongest vibes on this thread are on a par with men who reply to videos online about women talking about the pattern of experiences with men with some deflection bullshit.

You are all the problem my friends. When we talk about changing things in society, you are the ones obstructing it with the absolute wilful pretence that we don't have a problem with how boys are raised and socialised.

Women are statically more vulnerable than men and more likely to be harmed by a man. I support women only spaces

Boys being loving to their mothers doesn’t mean this doesn’t exist. The Kray twins adored their mum

You really need to move on from blaming women for how boys/men turn out.

Society has a huge problem with men - good men need to stop standing to the side on this and parent their children (boys and girls) better. And call out bad behaviour when they see it.

A large proportion of women hate women? You haven't exonerated yourself from that group with your own comments blaming mothers for male behaviour.

The op has moved the debate on into how boys are raised and the effect on society , it is quite obvious how lack of guidance ,mentoring , male role model, social media has a detrimental effect on boys /young men you would have to be pretty dim to have not realised that.
My annoyance with her post is that i think it came across as another goady boy hating thread of which there are so many , i do actually believe she was feeling that when she wrote it but has tweaked it somewhat to dig herself out a little.

This

No opinion on boys v girls. But there are loads of examples on this site of Little Prince Syndrome eg ‘my little prince shouldn’t have to clean toilets and I wish I could do it for him’ and ‘my son is doing time in prison but he’s not a bad lad, it was everyone else’s fault.

My son (now late 20s) was not what is annoyingly called 'a typical boy'. He was always polite, gentle and well-behaved - honestly! I had a daughter first and am one of two sisters, so yes, what are annoyingly called 'real boys' (by so many stupid people) came as a bit of a shock to my system. They came on playdates and would come into the house like a hurricane, shouting and kicking anything in sight and throwing themselves around the furniture.

Fortunately for me he soon made friends more like himself - clever, thoughtful boys who didn't leave a wreck of splintered chairs and broken toys behind.

Totally agreed.

Sounds like you know some really shit parents.

I do find the ages of 9-14 the most potentially annoying of all though. Younger ones are cute. Older teens stay away and barely speak to you. When a preteen is annoying, they are reaaaally annoying.

That's a good answer.

Can you just be clear though - when you say 'women' you're not including ones with penises? (I don't think you are but some TRAs might obfuscate with an answer like that)

I think this is just how debate/conversation tends to work. Do you tend to just talk at people with a fixed topic, or to them and see different perspectives and adapt your points as time progresses. I made this point in my second paragraph. I just also included my male relatives as examples

People just keep coming here to make wild statements about me because it’s way easier to conclude I’m a horrible troll lunatic rather than have any valid points and that you all do know what I am saying is based in truth

TBH I have gone from thinking the OP is a troll lunatic to accepting she does have a point throughout this thread

I don’t have any issue with people wanting to transition, and I’m not active in any circles regarding this, but women don’t have penises. I probably align with JK Rowling